Alex Scoble's IT Notes - An Information Technology Blog

Server 2003 Migration

Two weekends ago I migrated our file storage, print services, logon scripts and domain security from Novell 5.1 to Windows NT for domain, Kixtart for the logon script and Win Server 2003 for the file and print services.

My first impressions of Win Server 2003 are favorable even compared to Server 2000. So far it runs pretty well, is fast, stable and has some really nice features.

One great feature if you are using Server 2003 for file services is the shadow copy feature. It makes a copy of the shares on a volume at a specific interval that you set up. This way you can recover a file or folder using any of the available show copies. Novell does a similar thing but only allows you to recover from deleted files. Shadow copy allows you to quickly recover from any issue with a file or folder, barring complete array failure. So if you accidently write over a file, no problem. Erase a file, no problem. Corrupt a file, no problem.

So far that's the major feature that I've found to be useful that is new in 2003.

There are also some nice tweaks to security and the interface, but I will get into those at a later time.

Posting Slacker

Yeah, I've been slacking off on my posting here. So much to post about, so little time.

Been working like a dog and got a cold to boot. Think I got exposed to too much old equipment dust.

Anyhow, will have to post about our new Dell switches (3 x 3348s and 1 x 5224), who I used for running CAT6 between the switch room and server room and the fun I had fixing how one of our 4 post Hoffman racks was put together.

Also need to post about our email system woes.

Changes are fun, but they also cause pain.

Toys!

Just got my hands on the first Dell Latitude D600 laptop that came in. First impressions? Nice package.

Seems to be well built. Looks good and has everything you want in a laptop (except for the tablet PC stuff).

A/B/G wireless built in. DVD drive (this one has DVD+RW). Nice keyboard with both touchpad and trackpoint. Good LCD screen.

Will have updates here as I work with the system. Going to be interesting to see if this system is able to keep my praise. I have had problems with Dell laptops in the past, but there's always hope that they will get better. Given that, why did I go with Dell? Price. Comparible IBM laptop (T series) is $1000 more for same specs. Plus, I purchased everything for our network from Dell to get the leverage of volume purchase.